Ex-Bacon Factory Boost For Suffolk

People around the Suffolk area of Co Antrim will be really 'taking home the bacon' soon with news that a former pork processing facility is to be the location for a new, purpose built cross-community resource centre.

The planned multi-million pound centre near west Belfast was announced at the end of July with work on the Suffolk Road project due to begin in late 2011 with a view to being fully operational by the end of 2012.

A specialist contractor will first demolish the vacant building - already provides some community activities - and then clear the site.

The total cost of the project is estimated at £4.5 million with the Atlantic Philanthropies Group contributing £500,000 in addition to the £4 million from European Union funds made available by the European Union's PEACE III programme.

There is to be a concerted bid to kept the new facility in keeping with its environment with much of the black stone - which was a feature of the building when it was formerly used as a mill - to be part of the new building.

However, old and new will be running alongside each other as, to ensure income generation, two retail units will also operate on the site, once completed.

Meanwhile, St Patrick's Gaelic Athletic Club is also planning to develop a separate facility for the community - this time a sports complex in Lisburn, also in Co. Antrim.

It aims to use Ministry of Defence (MoD) land at Kirkwoods Road that is currently leased to Lisburn City Council.

However, while this has been identified by the club as its preferred location to develop it own sporting complex, there are unresolved problems over the terms of the current rolling three-year lease deal between the City Council and the MoD.

This means that the six acre site is only sub let on a yearly basis to the trustees of St Patrick's and may delay - or even stymie - the planned development.

(BMcC/GK)